Never Shout Never: Out Of The Black

By
Chanel Issa |

December 3, 2015

Last seen on our shores at Soundwave 2011, Christofer Drew, frontman for indie pop outfit Never Shout Never, is gearing up for his band’s first ever headline tour of Australia. BLUNT caught up with the singer to talk maturity, charity and escaping to the mountains to craft Never Shout Never’s latest album, Black Cat.

So you’ve heard it a million times before: our generation is made up of lazy good-for-nothings with a serious case of entitlement. Evidently someone forgot to tell singer-songwriter Christofer Drew, who went ahead and achieved more as a teenager than most musicians do in a lifetime. Forging ahead with music at the tender age of 16, Drew has had an enviable career, initially taking to Myspace as a solo artist in 2007 to deliver his brand of ukulele-riddled indie pop to scene kids the world over. In the years since, he’s been able to use the power of the almighty web to his advantage, building a global fanbase and piquing the interest of major labels before being snatched up by Warner Bros.

Fast-forward to 2015, add in some five albums and nine EPs, and you’ve got the Missouri group’s sixth full-length, Black Cat. As is to be expected, Drew is itching for his band to play their first headline shows in Australia and peddle their new wares.

“I’m feeling great about it,” Drew says of the long-awaited headline tour. “It feels like it’s the right time. It’s a new chapter – we took our time on it and just worked it out.”

It was in recent years that Drew did what we like to call “chuckin’ a Dallas Green” and made his touring bandmates permanent fixtures in his solo-project-turned-full-scale-band. Songwriting duties have long belonged to Drew himself, but on Black Cat, the singer explains that it was a much more collaborative affair this time around, with producer Dennis Herring (The Hives, Wavves) offering his two cents as well.

“Before I was really uptight about everyone’s involvement; I think it was definitely a maturity thing. We were a lot more creative and wrote a lot of songs, and Black Cat was the first album that I was feeling like it was a sure thing the whole time. It turned out to be exactly what we were hoping for.”

“I wrote a lot. I went into the mountains for a couple of months and just reflected.”

Drew drug deep to bring his journey of love, loss and acceptance to life on Black Cat, working on the release for almost two years and taking in some much-needed solitude in a mountain cabin.

“I wrote a lot,” he begins. “I went into the mountains for a couple of months and just reflected. This album is personal; it mixes together a lot of sounds and we wanted to bring it all together in a sense and incorporate elements into different tracks. We think we did a pretty good job of that, and it really just brought it all back home and tied it all together.”

In case you managed to evade the early 2000s where Myspace reigned supreme and how much your hair obscured your vision determined how many scene points you got, you’re probably aware of the days when Drew’s humble project, then known as nevershoutnever!,dominated the Internet.

“I mean Myspace is long gone,” the frontman admits. “I think with that initial success our fanbase started out but I think only the hardcore ones have actually stayed.”

Speaking about their recent string of Warped Tour dates in the UK, Drew admitted that it gave him the chance to indulge his charitable side. The singer has long been involved with organisations such as United Way and Bandhappy, hosting music workshops for fans where they can learn about songwriting techniques and the recording processes used by the band.

“That setting really allows us to give back to the community,” Drew says. “And it feels great!”

It’s almost been enough to turn good ol’ Ned Flanders green with envy.